WINSTON SALEM, NC.- Reynolda House Museum of American Art opens today a new exhibition, "Chuck Close: The Keith Series," in the Northwest Bedroom Gallery of the historic house. The exhibition will be on view through May 31, 2009.
The series depicts Keith Hollingworth, a sculptor who taught with Close at the University of Massachusetts in the late 1960s. Close is known for his large-scale portraits, executed with unusual techniques and media. Throughout his career he has often used friends and family members as his subjects. The six drawings and one study in the exhibition, all from the Reynolda House extensive permanent collection, show Close experimenting with various ways of representing his subject, composing the image with a mass of small dots or marks, almost like hand-made pixels. Although Close is certainly interested in exploring Keith's identity through the series, he inserts his own presence into the images as well: three of the drawings are composed of the artist's own fingerprints.